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Congratulations on finally being able to ride again!

That sounds like a huge horse. I think the largest horse I've ever ridden was a flea-bitten gray Percheron. I don't remember her height exactly, but she was at least 16 hands. That was more than big enough for me.

That is super!

Wanted to make an update as it's been a few months, I'm riding once a week still for lessons on the same giant fluffy boi. He's a 17.2, 24 year old hanovarian, and still the sweetest ever. I've started doing yoga and working on my general fitness and I have felt like a million bucks in the saddle lately, walk/trot shoulder in, haunches in, leg yeilds, all balanced and pretty. Haven't worked up to the canter yet, probably because I'm riding an elephant that needs a lot of encouragement to walk faster than a snail... I still love him and I feel a lot of confidence coming back. (side story: rode my friend's 29 year old 14.2 morgan mare a few weeks ago and she walks about 5xs faster than the warmblood, it was startling at first lol also startling: the ground comes a lot faster when you get off a horse a full foot shorter than what you're used to)

Even better, I am going to start part leasing him next month and ride about 3 times a week until July when he has vacation. In September I might full lease him, but haven't gotten the numbers on that so we will see :) The weather is finally getting good up here in the Wisco so I'm dying to get outside and ride the fields and forests again, aahhh!

More updates: leasing has gone really well, I'm not able to fully lease the big boy since that's expensive, but I ride him 3xs a week. I had my gallbladder out in August so had to take a couple of weeks off, in that time my horse went on and off lame, he's an old man and has arthritis so that's not surprising. He's now being treated and had a chiropractor appointment today which went well, so hopefully he's feeling better. Part of me thinks he's just trying to get out of work, but he's dead lame to the left some days so I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, in my last update I said I hadn't worked up to cantering. About a week or 2 after that post we did start doing canter work, which he is veeeeerrrrrrryyy easy to sit because he's huge and every movement is huge and easy to sit. My last lesson we did some nice walk-canter transitions and my trainer kicked my butt into trying flying changes- which we did! My first time ever doing a flying change, I'm so glad this horse is so well trained, I really just had to keep him going forward and switch my legs and he changed. This horse is slow and pretty lazy, but once we were doing that canter work he was soooooo happy I could feel it. Old man still got it!

I agree- trot is fast enough! I started out riding morgans and never felt the need to canter when I was a kid, my mare flew at the trot. Then I started riding dressage and "You GOTTA canter" ugh, fine ok. I didn't like it, but with my current lease horse he's huge and slow, and the canter is like sitting on a boat going 10mph over some wake waves, it's the easiest thing to sit lol.

I'm glad you survived the games! It's not that bad if you do it just a little lol